


In This Light

by nebulastucky



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Recovering, M/M, Minor Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, POV Alternating, POV Bucky Barnes, POV Steve Rogers, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Slow Build, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson Friendship, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-29 16:37:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6384217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nebulastucky/pseuds/nebulastucky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not a big thing when Steve and Bucky get together. It just sort of happens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It starts with Bucky remembering. It starts with Bucky remembering Steve, remembering their lives together before the war, _during_ the war, and everything that happened after.

 

The Winter Soldier memories come first, but Steve always expected them to. Expecting them doesn't make them any easier to help Bucky deal with, though, and Steve learns that the first night he hears Bucky’s screams from his room down the hall.

Steve isn't even fully awake by the time he's in with Bucky, trying not to panic because Bucky’s still asleep, Bucky’s _screaming_ but he's still _asleep._

He can't remember what he's supposed to do. He can't remember ever having to do this, he can't remember this happening before, he can't remember. And isn't it ironic, Bucky on the bed screaming because of some awful thing, some horrible _memory,_ and Steve can't _remember_.

He has this horrible feeling in his gut, like there's nothing he can do, when Bucky’s eyes fly wide open. They have the same fear in them that they had on the bridge. 

“Bucky,” Steve whispers. His voice is soft, and probably too similar to how it was on the helicarrier. 

Bucky doesn't speak, doesn't move, and for a terrifying moment Steve thinks he's the Winter Soldier again, that he's forgotten everything they worked so hard to help him remember. Steve swallows hard, tries again.

“Buck,” he whispers, and dares to move even closer, until he's kneeling beside Bucky at the side of the bed. Bucky’s eyes follow him.

“Buck, it's me, it's Steve, you're safe, I’m here, you're okay.” Every word feels like it's not enough, but Steve doesn't know what else to say, because there's nothing he can say that will help. 

But apparently it does help, enough that the panic in Bucky’s eyes fades, and he wakes fully from whatever nightmare from his past he was reliving. His flesh hand grabs the wrist of the one Steve offers, so tight that if Steve were anyone else it would leave a bruise.

Maybe that's not a sign that Steve's helped. Maybe Bucky’s gone back to being a weapon, maybe all the work they put in is lost again. Maybe he's the Winter Soldier again, and the wide eyes are disorientation rather than fear. 

Steve feels his dinner - Chinese take-out, his treat - push its way from his stomach to his throat at the thought. 

“Steve?” Bucky says, breathless, like he hasn't breathed at all since Steve opened the door. Maybe he hasn't.

“Yeah, I’m here,” Steve sighs. His smile is soft, because he knows Bucky can see it, even in the dark.

Bucky’s grip on his wrist doesn't loosen.

“Are you… okay? Did you remember something?” Steve asks tentatively, worried he's asking it wrong.

“Just a dream,” Bucky assures him, but it sounds more like he's assuring himself. His voice is shaky. 

“I'm here, Buck, I’ve got you,” Steve would be lying if he said his voice wasn't cracking too. “What was it? Can you tell me?”

Bucky's eyes go glassy, and Steve worries he's lost him again. “It, uh, it was dark. That guy, uh - Rumlow? - he was there, and uh, there was a chair -”

It's a mission debrief, or what constitutes a debrief for a man whose memories are wiped as soon as he starts to ask questions. Rumlow is there, a couple of unnamed scientists, and Alexander Pierce. Bucky - no, _the Winter Soldier_ recounts the mission. He says it went as well as expected. Target eliminated, no unnecessary blood spilled.

Apart from one guard, Bucky says - and it’s Bucky who says it, now, with Steve - the Asset didn't consider him unnecessary. Bucky remembers that the Asset never told Pierce or Rumlow or the faceless men behind the pain and the chair about the guard.

“Why?” Steve asks, because he can't stop himself. He knows he shouldn't push, it won't work like that, but he does anyway because this is more than Bucky has ever told him at once.

“They didn't need to know,” is Bucky's answer.

Steve wants to stay with him that night, just in case. He doesn't, though, because Bucky doesn't ask him to, and he doesn't know just what Bucky is comfortable with yet.

Steve knows that Bucky remembers some things from before the war - little things. His mother's name. Newspaper in Steve's shoes. He remembers taking Steve and the girls to the Stark Expo, but not what happened after.

Steve returns to his own bed once Bucky's breathing evens out. He doesn't sleep.

 

* * *

 

Steve's flipping pancakes when Bucky finally emerges from his room that morning. He goes straight for the coffee, like he always does, and always has done. _Old habits die hard_.

“Stuff’s bad for you, ya know,” Steve tells him, trying desperately to put the smile in his voice, because he knows Bucky’s already sitting at the table with his back to him.

“Says the guy fryin’ pancakes in bacon grease,” Bucky mutters. “Who told you that, anyway? Banner?”

Steve frowns. “Yes, actually.”

Bucky scoffs. “Figures.”

“You want syrup or not, James?” Steve warns. 

“God, Stevie, you sound just like my mom,” Bucky laughs. It hangs heavy in the air, that word, _mom_.

Steve doesn't push. He never pushes. He lets the words hang there, but still catches the brightness in Bucky's eyes as he slides him a plate stacked high with the kind of fluffy pancakes and crisp bacon they would've killed for in the 30’s. 

“You tryna give me a coronary, Rogers?” Bucky asks, already drowning his food in maple syrup.

Steve can't stop the fond smile that settles on his face as he watches. “You always did have a sweet tooth, even when we were kids.”

Bucky locks eyes with him, but his gaze is distant. Steve knows that look, he's seen it enough times now. “The diner down the block. You always got bigger portions. I always -”

Steve beams at him. “You always took the two extra pancakes they gave me. Could never finish ‘em, anyway.”

The corners of Bucky's mouth turn upwards. He looks down at his food, and it becomes a full grin.

His hair is far too long, and he hasn't shaved in a few days, and he's got a metal arm, but right now - Steve could be sitting across from Bucky in that diner, and it could be 1935 again. There's so much of the old Bucky in that smile that Steve aches, but he knows he shouldn't. 

The Bucky he has now - after everything he's been through with HYDRA and the Winter Soldier - will never be the man he grew up with, the man he went to war with. Steve knows that, and he reminds himself every damn day that he's not trying _fix_ Bucky, he's not trying to bring back the man who died on that train in Austria, he's just trying to _help_. As much as Steve misses him, he knows the old Bucky is long gone.

“Got plans today?” Bucky asks from behind the rim of his coffee mug.

“We’re meeting Sam for a run at ten,” Steve says, “then Natasha and Clint for lunch.” 

Bucky pouts. “If we're running, what's the point of eating now?” 

“Needed to get you out of bed _somehow_.” 

“I thought Clint and Natasha were on a mission?” Bucky asks after a while. His plate his almost clear now. 

“They got back last night,” Steve finishes off his coffee. “Nat sent me a text a little while after I went back to bed.” 

Bucky gives him the same look he used to, when Steve would take on guys three times his size in back alleys, and come home bloody and still too stubborn for his own good. 

“Don't tell me you stayed awake after all that, Stevie,” he says, and Steve's hit full in the face by the genuine _concern_ in Bucky's voice. “You can't blame yourself for any of this, and I _know_ that's what you're doing, so don't give me that look.”

Steve doesn't know what look he's giving Bucky - as far as he knows, this is just his face. But Bucky - Buck’s always been able to read Steve like an open book. When they were kids, it was like Bucky knew what Steve was thinking before he even thought it.

The Winter Soldier was trained to read people - to read targets, mostly. Sometimes accomplices. To see how easily they'll abandon their cause. How much of a problem they’ll be. He was trained to detect the tiniest shift in a person’s eyes. Microexpressions that show when a target's guard comes down.

Steve has never been guarded with Bucky. Has always been open and honest and utterly vulnerable.

“If I had caught you on that train, none of this would've happened,” Steve says quietly, and he sounds so defeated already that Bucky thinks it would kill him to argue back.

“Steve, that's not your fault,” Bucky says, “and I don't blame you for any of this. No one could have made that reach, not even Captain America."

He says that last part with a soft smile. He reaches across the table and puts his hand on Steve's. It's not harsh or strong like the night before, and Steve visibly relaxes under the touch.

Steve smiles at him, but his eyes are sad.

“Eat up,” he says, with an almost tangible air of finality. “Don't want my hard work going to waste.”

Steve stands without another word, and walks into his room. Bucky's appetite disappears with him.


	2. Chapter 2

It's a strange kind of tension that sits between them until they leave to meet Sam. They speak quietly, or not at all.

They meet Sam already on his route. He's gotten fitter and faster since he started running with Steve, and then Bucky, but they still pass him four times before Sam finishes his circuit. Sam knows Steve and Bucky run at each other's pace, and never his, but that doesn't stop a guy from wishing they'd hang back and _talk_ with him on their runs. 

They push themselves today, Sam notices. He notices a lot of things. He notices the easy banter Steve and Bucky usually have is absent today. He notices its return when they finish running off whatever tension had been hanging over them.

And every time he sees them, be it for a run or lunch or a movie at their place, he notices the lovesick way they look at each other.

More than once, he's wondered if it's always been like this between them.

“Man,” Sam says after draining a bottle of water, “you two are gonna run me into an early grave.”

“Guess you're just gonna have to step it up, Wilson,” Steve replies, but he's not even looking at Sam. He's watching Bucky at a food truck a couple hundred feet away, buying water and pretzels.

Sam sees the smile on Bucky's face as he returns, and he knows it's not for him.

 

* * *

 

Sam joins them for lunch. They meet Clint and Natasha at the usual place, a cosy deli a few blocks from Steve and Bucky's apartment.

Bucky leaves his order with Steve - “Just in case.” - and ambles off to the bathroom to freshen up. Sam watches Steve watch him go.

“Good run today, boys?” Natasha asks. She sips the cappuccino she ordered before Sam, Steve, and Bucky arrived.

“Oh yeah, definitely,” Sam drawls. “Almost busted a lung ‘cuz of those two.”

“That true, Rogers?” Clint scoffs. “You ‘n Barnes tryna kill Birdman here?”

“Whether or not Feathers here drops dead on a run has nothing to do with us,” Bucky says, sliding into his seat beside Steve, “and _everything_ to do with his cardio training.”

“Was that a compliment or an insult?” Steve asks, and looks at him sidelong.

Bucky looks back at him for a longer time than is necessary, by Sam’s guess, before giving him a small smile. “I'm gonna leave that one open to interpretation, I think." 

A waitress comes to their table and greets them with a smile and a cheery recital of the specials. She is small and blonde and endlessly sweet. If she recognises any of them, she doesn't mention it. She takes their orders and smiles a little more shyly when Bucky lays the charm on thick. Sam feels Steve stiffen beside him.

“You have to do that _everywhere_ we go, Buck?” Steve groans once she's gone back to to kitchen with their orders. “Take a hint, pal. Your flirting ain't what it used to be.”

“Like you'd know, Rogers,” Bucky rolls his eyes as he says it.

Sam catches Natasha’s eye. She winks at him.

“Tell us about your mission, guys,” Sam says. It sounds like a question. “Unless it's _top secret_ , of course.”

“Then tell us anyway,” Bucky adds.

“Standard stuff,” Clint shrugs. “Secret government agency kicking up a fuss, trying to take over the world. I won't bore you with the details.”

“Mostly because he can't _remember_ the details,” Natasha says. “Doctor Cho says he's got a mild concussion.”

“What would your sister say?” Steve says. The teasing comes easily, but never as naturally as it does with Bucky. Sam doubts anything comes as naturally to Steve as Bucky does.

“Laura does _not_ need to know about this,” Clint threatens.

The waitress returns with their food on a wide tray. Her eyes sparkle when Bucky smiles at her.

Bucky lowers his voice when he asks, “Any word from HYDRA these days?" 

“You'd be the first to know about it,” Natasha says. “We're keeping an ear out for them, but so far not a peep.”

“You two getting antsy?” Clint says. “It's only been a month.”

A month since Steve hung up the shield to spend more time with Bucky, to help him recover whatever memories he can. Temporary retirement, Steve calls it. He doesn’t see himself ever leaving the Avengers permanently, he's told Sam as much.

It suits him, though. Retirement. God knows he's earned it.

Steve absently rubs his hand over the stubble he's let grow out along his jaw.

“Not _antsy_ ,” Steve says with a smirk to Sam.

“That was _one time_ , and I didn't know he could do that -”

“Just a little worried for you guys,” Steve says. “You sure you're holding up without us?”

“Believe it or not, Rogers, we're actually doing alright,” Natasha says. “Given that we've been in the business longer than you've been off ice.”

“No need to be so frosty, Nat,” Bucky says.

Steve looks at him. “Was that a fucking _pun_?”

Bucky looks back at him. “You tell me, Cap.” 

Sam clears his throat. He looks to Clint for help, who then looks to Natasha.

“Tony's throwing a party next week,” she says. “You should come, it'll be fun. Thor might even show.” 

Bucky cracks a smile. “He bringin’ any of that Asgardian mead with him?”

“Oh, yeah,” Clint says dryly, “barrels of the stuff.”

Steve laughs. “I'm game.”

 

* * *

 

They leave Clint and Natasha at the door on the way out. Natasha promises to send a jet to take them to Tony’s on Friday.

Sam walks Steve and Bucky to their apartment. Bucky doesn't know when he stopped thinking of it as _Steve’s apartment._ He doesn't know when it became _theirs,_ when part of it became _his._ He decides he likes it, because he knows that he can make that decision now.

The only time Bucky saw this apartment before Steve took him in - before Steve _saved him_ \- was the night he shot Nick Fury three times in the chest. The apartment has changed since then, since Bucky moved in, since Steve welcomed him with open arms.

There are photographs everywhere. Some are of Sam, some are of Natasha and Clint on their rare days off. The Barton family Christmas card has sat on their mantelpiece for six months, in a small frame Steve found at a garage sale.

Most of the photos are of Steve and Bucky.

They're in line for the Cyclone at Coney Island in the pink frame on the top shelf of the bookcase in the living room.

They stand closely, with their backs to the camera, at the Grand Canyon. Sam took that photo as a joke. Bucky knows it's one of Steve's favourites.

The one Bucky finds himself drawn to more and more these days, though, is not the picture of him and Steve eating hotdogs at a football game, or one of the hundreds Steve took the time they spent a week helping Clint with his home renovations.

It's Peggy Carter.

Her official SSR portrait stands beside the Bartons on their mantel. She is not the wrinkled and tired woman she is now in this photograph. Her eyes are sharp and her lips red, and Bucky remembers new things every time he sees it.

Bucky hasn't met her since he left the Winter Soldier behind. He hasn't seen her since the 1940’s.

Steve visits her sometimes, on days when Bucky feels an entire world of pain and guilt crashing down on him, and he can't leave his own head. Peggy knows he's alive, though. She knows what he was, what he's done, and Bucky finds that he's glad for it.

They're home an hour when Bucky decides he's ready. He's put it off long enough, at this point.

“Hey, Stevie,” Bucky says, and nudges Steve at the other end of the sofa with his bare foot. Steve looks at him with a small smile already on his face, and Bucky feels braver.

“Yeah?” Steve says. His voice is barely there, and Bucky realises he must've been dozing.

“You think we could visit Peggy?” Bucky asks, and looks back at her portrait. “Just - I know how you love seein’ her, and I think I _remember_ her - an’ it's crazy, but it's because of that damn picture -”

“Yeah, Buck,” Steve breathes, “of course we can see her, I - Jesus, you got no clue how long she's been beggin’ me to bring you with me.”

Bucky smiles at him. It comes easy.

“When do you wanna go?” Steve asks. “We could go today, if you're up for it?”

“Tomorrow?” Bucky says, but it sounds more like a question, because he's still not used to making his own decisions.

Steve's smile is soft when it turns into the biggest grin Bucky's ever seen.

There's a flash, a hint, _a memory_ of laughing blue eyes and a smile too big for Steve's thin face. The world around them is a soft beige - it felt like everything was brown back then, like an old photograph faded at the edges - but Steve's eyes are sparkling blue oceans Bucky could drown in and feel happy about it.

He doesn't remember what Steve’s smile is from, only that Bucky put it there, and that he put it there often enough to crave it, enough that seeing it now feels like a fix of a drug he wasn't fully aware he was on.

“Yeah,” Steve says, and it's the Steve sitting here in the present saying it, but his eyes are alive like Bucky hasn't seen them since before the war. “We can go tomorrow, if that's what you'd like.”

 

* * *

 

They order pizza and Bucky gets to pick what they watch on Netflix. Steve spends the entire night looking at him like he hung the moon.

Bucky doesn't have a nightmare that night. Instead he dreams of a dimly lit bar, a woman in a red dress and redder lipstick, and a little guy from Brooklyn too stubborn to run away from a fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im so terrible at updates sorry  
> im working on another fic atm that kind of requires more attention than i expected so im not sure when i'll be able to update this one next
> 
> fun fact i was going to make this and the next chapter just one but i was convinced otherwise


	3. Chapter 3

“Rise and shine, Robocop,” Sam all but yells. Bucky startles awake.

Many things become clear, almost immediately after his eyes open. One, Steve left him to sleep in. Two, Sam came back with him after their run. Three, Bucky understands that reference. Four, he doesn't appreciate it.

“I can think of nine ways to kill you with one hand,” Bucky says into his pillow. “Twelve if I use the metal one. Call me that one more time. I _dare_ you.”

“Uh-huh,” Sam says, his lips pressed together. He calls over his shoulder, “Hey, Rogers, where's that caffeine? I think Sleeping Beauty here could use it.”

Steve is there, suddenly, as Bucky sits up. He's fresh out of the shower, with a pair of sweatpants on his legs and not much else on the rest of him. He hands Bucky a cup of hot coffee. If Steve notices the way Bucky's fingers linger on his in the hand-off, he doesn't mention it.

Sam probably notices.

“Black, five sugars,” Steve tells him.

Bucky sips it experimentally. This, he realises, is exactly how he likes it. He's not sure if it's because of the - frankly, insane - amount of sugar or if it's because it triggers memories of thousands of cups just like this before the war, but it makes him _happy,_ like no cup of coffee should be able to. 

“Is this how I used to take it?” Bucky asks.

“Sweeter than anybody I know,” Steve says. His voice sounds tight. 

“You've been holdin’ out on me, Stevie,” Bucky says after another sip. Steve's eyes soften, and his cheeks go pink. Bucky hides his smile behind the rim of his cup.

Sam glances between them and shakes his head. “Am I in this room right now? Am I even here?”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “God, Wilson, this is like Sunday dinner all over again.”

“You are never gonna let that go, are you?”

“All I'm saying,” Bucky says, “is that you shouldn't feel like you're second best whenever I'm in the room.”

Sam doesn't speak.

“Even though you are,” Bucky finishes.

There's no real bitterness in the way Sam says, “I hate you.”

 

* * *

  


There is less tension on the walk to Peggy’s home than Bucky expects. Steve is light on his feet beside him, with his hands in his pockets and a barely-there smile on his lips. Bucky finds he no longer freezes every time Steve bumps their shoulders together.

“You nervous?” Steve asks quietly.

“No,” Bucky says. “Yes. Maybe - I’m not sure?”

Steve huffs a laugh. Bucky shoves him.

“It's okay if you are,” Steve offers, and looks at him.

“I just - it's a little hard to believe she'd wanna meet me. After everything I've done.”

Steve's smile falters. “Buck -”

Bucky looks at the sky. Clear blue.

“I know,” Bucky says. “Just tryna wrap my head around it, is all.”

They walk an entire block in silence. Bucky wonders if he'll ever get used to people wanting anything to do with him after what he - after what the Asset did.

“First time I went to visit Peg,” Steve tells him, and he looks at his shoes instead of Bucky, “I told her how the serum saved me when I was on ice. She was convinced you made it, too.”

Bucky looks at Steve. He's got that sad smile again, the one he thinks works as a cover, the one he always gets when he talks about Peggy.

“She didn't know about the Winter Soldier,” Steve continues. “But on some level, I think she always knew you'd be back - she called us a pair, me an’ you. Can't have one without the other.”

Bucky remembers bits and pieces of fighting with Steve in the war. He remembers the Howlies, sometimes. Dum Dum's laugh that shook the whole camp, and splitting whatever whiskey Dernier left them with Gabe.

Mostly he remembers having Steve's six, always, and Steve having his. They were a team, a Nazi-fighting machine, a force to be reckoned with. He remembers sharing a tent with Steve in the middle of winter, and the weird feeling of _comfort_ that always came with sleeping next to him, even on the front lines.

“Guess Peg was right,” Steve says. “She always did say you'd find your way back.” 

Bucky cracks a smile. “Never could get rid of me easy, could you, Stevie?”

“Never really wanted to,” Steve says quietly. Bucky isn't sure if he was supposed to hear it.

 

* * *

  


Steve has been granted unlimited access to Peggy Carter, Bucky realises, as they pass the front desk long after visiting hours. The dark skinned woman sitting behind the desk smiles at them, and Bucky's throat is inexplicably tight.

The hallway they find themselves in is quiet, and narrower than Bucky would like. The walls are painted a rusty brown colour, and lined with photographs and certificates.

Peggy's room is halfway down the hall, and Bucky almost laughs at the number on the door.

107 _._  

_“Sergeant James Barnes, shipping out for England first thing tomorrow.”_

A shiver runs down Bucky's spine.

“You want me to go in first?” Steve asks quietly. Bucky nods absently. 

 _“Where’re we going?”_  

_“The future.”_

Steve opens the door and walks in, closes it almost all the way behind him. Bucky leans against the wall and listens, tries not to talk himself out of staying and going through with this.

“Hey, Peg,” Steve says softly. “How’s my best girl doin’?” 

Bucky doesn't hear Peggy's reply, but he hears Steve’s laugh. His breathing comes easier.

“I got a surprise for you, Peggy,” Steve says. He catches Bucky’s eye in the small gap between door and frame. Bucky takes a deep breath, and nods.

Steve opens the door just enough for Bucky to get through, and holds his eye until Bucky is inside and looks away. Bucky looks at Peggy, and his breath catches in his throat.

Bucky is prepared for the sharpness of her eyes, the sweetness of her smile. He is not prepared for the grey of Peggy's hair, the deep lines of her face.

“James,” she says, and it sounds like a prayer.

It's on instinct that Bucky crosses to her bedside and takes her hand. He kneels beside her.

“Hey there, Agent Carter.” The gentleness of his voice surprises him.

Peggy huffs a soft laugh. “I haven't been Agent Carter for a long time, James.”

She looks at Steve, and her eyes go glassy. “All this time,” she says, “you kept him all to yourself. How could you do that to an old woman, Steven?”

Bucky answers for him. “He's not the one to blame here, Peg.”

Peggy smacks him lightly. “Hush, James, you worry for nothing. As if I would be anything but welcoming to the good Captain’s right hand man.”

Steve pulls up a chair for Bucky, and smirks. “Bet you wish Sam was here for that, huh?”

“He'll believe me,” Bucky says, sitting down. “Long as you back me up on it.”

Peggy asks about Sam, and Natasha, and Sharon, and even Clint. Steve speaks affectionately of all of them, and Bucky finds himself comforted by his tone.

It's just Peggy and Steve talking for a long while. Bucky doesn't mind it. He loses himself in the stories they trade, the memories they share.

There is a small photo frame on Peggy's bedside locker. In it is a picture of Steve - not as he is now, not Captain America, but _Steve_. Skinny and pale and short and Brooklyn to his bones. The Steve that Bucky sees in his dreams sometimes.

The Steve that Bucky remembers growing up with.

“Is this what you looked like when you joined the army?” Bucky picks up the frame, examines it. He looks at Steve. “You were so _small._ ”

Peggy smiles. “Steve was always Dr. Erskine's first choice - his only choice, I’d wager.” 

“There was always Hodge,” Steve offers.

“Gilmore Hodge was a bully and a misogynist.” Peggy looks at him sharply, and Bucky finds himself smirking.

“I - um,” Bucky says quietly. “I remember the night before I left for England. Before I was shipped out.” 

Steve gets that look in his eye, the one he always gets when Bucky talks about remembering. Steve remembers everything, Bucky knows he does. He still lets Bucky tell the story every time.

“We went to the Stark Expo,” Bucky says. He looks at his hands, and the photo he's still holding. “With the Synthetic Man? And the - God, the _flying car._ ”

Bucky looks at Peggy. “Did Stark - uhm, Howard? - did he ever get that running right?”

Peggy laughs, high and light. “God, no.” 

“I don't think even Tony would touch _gravitic reversion technology,_ ” Steve says.

Bucky remembers more from that night. He remembers fighting with Steve over enlisting, he remembers the soft aching feeling in his chest when Steve hugged him goodbye, he remembers leaving the girls and the dance hall early.

He remembers Steve not being there when he got home, or when he left that morning.

He remembers having the worst feeling in his gut - like the knot in his stomach got bigger with every second Steve wasn't there to see him off until it felt like he was suffocating, until it felt like he was dying, until he laughed because he could imagine Steve fretting right now, if he were there, over Bucky being the one not able to breathe for once. 

He remembers the first time he saw Steve as he is today - tall and broad and _Captain America -_ in that dark lab in Azzano.

He remembers thinking it was another hallucination, that he'd finally cracked under whatever Zola had given him, that this was his mind’s last ditch effort at giving him something to smile about.

He remembers Steve's face, above him on that table, relieved and smiling and still so panicked and worried. 

The room is very quiet, suddenly. Maybe it's not sudden. Maybe it's been silent for a long time, and it's only now crashing down on Bucky, filling his ears with a ringing that might deafen him.

“Buck?” Steve's voice is muted, a million miles away.

Bucky remembers the building going up in flames around them, and Steve telling him to run.

_“Go! Get outta here!”_

He remembers the stench of smoke and burns that lasted weeks.

_“No, not without you!”_

“Bucky,” Steve says. His voice is barely a whisper through the snow Bucky is falling into. Down, down, down, down, it doesn't stop. 

A train. The Alps. Steve, doing everything - _everything_ \- to save him.

_“Just hold on!”_

It's not enough. It was never going to be enough. Bucky knew, even then, that there was only one way out of this, and that was _down._ Steve could never reach, and Bucky could never hold on.

Bucky doesn't think Steve will ever forgive himself for that.

Steve reaches him now, in Peggy’s room. Steve’s hand finds his, no longer holding the photo. That skinny kid from Brooklyn lies on the floor now, his glass cracked. 

Steve is cautious at first. His hand touches the metal of Bucky's like Bucky is a frightened animal, like he is a fragile piece of ornate stained glass, like he is a shy flower 

Bucky knows he is none of these things. He is the ultimate predator, he is a twisted heap of part-melted steel, he is a jungle overgrown.

He lets Steve take his hand anyway. He lets Steve pull him out of his head. He lets Steve touch the metallic fist of HYDRA like it's something precious, like it couldn't kill him in four seconds flat with his guard down like this. 

He lets himself look at Steve, at his friend, at the man who accepted death because he didn't want to hurt someone he knew seventy years ago. He lets his heart break a little bit at the thought. 

He lets it break more at the look Steve gives him.

There's so much raw caring and concern in those eyes, eyes he's seen a million times in his life. He feels like he should remember every single time he's looked into those eyes, every silent discussion they've had, every time those eyes have held his own - during a war, a fight in a back alley, a laughing fit. 

“Hey,” Steve says, soft, barely a whisper. “I've got you.”

Bucky believes him. 

“Are you quite alright, James?” Peggy asks. Her voice pulls him back into the room properly, out of the small world of just him and Steve and no one else, and he looks at her.

He is very aware, now, of everything. There are no nerve endings in the metal, but he is aware of the pressure of Steve's fingers entwined in his own. He is aware of the ache that settles itself deep in his chest, behind his ribcage and just to the right of where his heart is.

He is aware of Peggy's soft eyes, gone glassy, holding his. Not pushing for an answer, but open if he wants to give one.

He is aware of Steve watching him. He is always aware of this.

“I'm fine,” Bucky says. His voice shakes and he knows it. “Just - remembering.”

Bucky looks down and sees, rather than feels, Steve squeeze his hand. He does not squeeze back.

“What'd you remember, Buck?” Steve asks. His voice is rough and tight.

Bucky winces when he says, “The train.”

Steve's hand goes limp in his.

“Oh, _James_ ,” Peggy says. Bucky can hear the tears in her voice.

Bucky looks at Steve, and his heart breaks that little bit more, that dull ache in his chest becomes a sharp pain.

Steve opens his mouth to speak, to explain himself, to _blame_ himself, but all that comes out is a strangled cry. A single tear falls into his lap as he snaps his head down.

“Steve.” Bucky says. “This is not your fault. None of this is your fault.”

Steve shakes his head, and Bucky _breaks._

The wooden arms of their chairs make it difficult and awkward to pull Steve to him, but Bucky does it anyway. The corner of one of the arms digs into his ribs and probably Steve's too, but he doesn't _care,_ it doesn't _matter._  

What matters now is Steve, shaking in his arms, because he won't stop _blaming himself_ for something that is _not his fault._

When Steve pulls away, after what could have been hours or mere seconds, Bucky realises he doesn't want him to. So he keeps Steve's hand in his, in a grip almost vice-like, as Steve tries to wipe away whatever tears are still streaking down his face.

 

* * *

  


Steve looks at Peggy with a very forced, very sad smile, when they leave. “It's always good to see you, Peg.”

“And you, Steve,” she says. Her voice is strained, and Bucky thinks she'll probably break down herself the minute they step outside the door.

Steve walks out with a curt nod and watery eyes. Bucky stands and turns to follow him.

“James,” Peggy calls to his back. Bucky turns again, and sees that she is holding a photo. It is identical to the one in the frame with the cracked glass, only far more worn.

She holds it out to him, and he knows already that telling her no will not work. Instead he takes the photo of Steve, in his dog tags that look like they would weight him enough to drown if he were to swim with them, and he mutters a very quiet _thank you._

Bucky kisses her hand and tells her, “it's been a pleasure, Agent.”

“Take care of him for me, won't you?” Peggy says, her voice fond but still so pained.

Bucky smiles. “You think anyone could stop me?"

They walk home in silence. The photo of Steve sits in the breast pocket of Bucky's jacket. He wonders if it'll ever leave that pocket, if he'll frame it put it on his bedside table, if he'll put it on the mantelpiece or that spot in the kitchen that the sun hits just right.

For now, he decides, he'll keep it with him.

 

* * *

 

 

Steve shuts the front door and leans against it. Bucky stands a few feet in front of him and watches, looks at Steve staring at the floor and tying to even out his breathing.

Bucky knows what that's like. To have his past turn around and run full force into him, instead of _chasing_ it like he's done for the last two years. 

He knows it's been longer for Steve. 

Bucky does what he knows helps him: he doesn't make a fuss. He doesn't try to hold Steve again, doesn't make shushing sounds like Steve is a toddler with a grazed knee, doesn't wrap him in a blanket and tell him _everything’s gonna be fine_. 

He doesn't make a fuss. 

He orders Thai food online for both of them, and leaves Netflix open for Steve to choose when he comes in. Steve picks a sitcom about a study group in a community college. 

Steve is in the kitchen getting a glass of water when the food arrives. He gives Bucky a pleading look, and Bucky nods. Bucky gets the food and leaves the delivery girl a $15 tip.

They share idle conversation while they eat, nothing heavy, mostly commentary on the show Steve picked out. It's pretty funny, Bucky thinks, but he doesn't understand a lot of the references. 

Steve laughs, though, so Bucky decides he likes it just because of that. 

The mood is considerably lighter by the time their plates are empty. The TV is turned down low, and they're talking more freely now. 

Steve rests his head on Bucky's shoulder and they sit, quietly, for a while. 

“Thank you for today,” Steve says. “I know it wasn't easy on you.” 

 _It wasn't easy on you either,_ Bucky wants to say.

He says it.

“I know, but.” Steve says. He doesn't finish. Doesn't need to.

 _But it was harder on you._  

_But you remembered the train._

_But I deserve it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry this took so long and is so very very emo!!! i promise next chapter will be much lighter
> 
> im taking a three-week course this july and i won't have a lot (read: any) time to write BUT i might be able to get the next chapter up in the first week of july so. fingers crossed the gods of motivation bless me this coming week!!!


	4. Chapter 4

Bucky stares.

“There's so many,” he tells Steve. “And  _ none  _ of them are sad oatmeal for poor kids in the 30’s.”

Steve stands at his side, looking at Bucky stare at the wall of cereal before them. Some boxes boast that they contain whole-wheat, some have pictures of cartoon animals, some look just entirely unhealthy, and some look  _ too  _ healthy.

“Isn't all wheat whole, though?” Bucky asks. “Who ever heard of half a wheat?”

“Bucky, that's not -” Steve starts, but then he catches the glint in Bucky's eye and shoves his metal shoulder. “Don't be a smartass.”

“I can't be a smartass, I can't be a hermit who lives off TV and the fake bananas his best friend gets him,” Bucky says. “What  _ can  _ I be, Steve?”

“A real pain in my ass is what,” Steve mutters. “Just pick a cereal so we can go get ice cream, we have a very specific list.”

Bucky grabs a box of Lucky Charms - “What were you tellin’ me the other day about givin’ you a heart attack?” - and throws it in the basket on Steve's arm. “But you can't tell me that there's not  _ way  _ too many cereals, Stevie, it's madness.”

Steve shrugs. “Lot more people got money these days. Different people like different things.”

“Yeah, but an entire aisle?”

“It's a little much,” Steve concedes. “You should see this place I went with Sam - shelves sky-high and boxes of Froot Loops bigger’n Stark's ego.”

Bucky laughs.

They pass the produce section on their way to the freezers, and Bucky gives the bananas a dirty look. Steve rolls his eyes.

“Buck, I know they taste weird, but they're not  _ lying  _ to you,” he says.

“They're calling themselves bananas when they're not, Steve, that's what lying is!"

Steve rubs a hand down his face. “Just grab some apples instead, Bucky.”

Bucky grabs some apples instead. “Fucking banana plague.”

The frozen foods section is an adventure, to say the least. Despite being back in the world for so long, Bucky is still shocked at the variety of flavours available, and how few of them actually sound appealing.

“Who really  _ needs  _ triple chocolate? Ain't that kinda overkill?” he asks, scanning the labels.

“I've had that,” Steve says. “Little rich, but it's nice enough.”

 

Bucky puts a carton of triple chocolate fudge in the basket. It's followed by a tub of vanilla - “Steve, I  _ know  _ you're literally a flag with legs every other week, but do you have to be so  _ all-American?”  _ \- and a tub of mint chip.

“You want syrup?” Steve asks, already looking at the selection.

“What the hell kind of dumb question is that, of course I want syrup.” Bucky says. “Do they have that caramel one I like?”

At the register, the cashier gives their items a funny look: ingredients for a pasta recipe Clint gave them; a pre-made pie crust; an entire roast dinner, uncooked; three different flavours of ice cream and syrup; several kinds of fruit; Lucky Charms breakfast cereal; the complete  _ Friends  _ boxset; a  _ lot  _ of whiskey; and a disposable camera.

The look is probably deserved.

 

* * *

 

Bucky likes cooking.

He doesn't know if it's the fact that this is what normal people whose brains don't feel like a time-bomb every other day do, cook dinner for themselves, or if it's because he gets to do it with Steve and pretend that they're just regular people, but he  _ likes  _ cooking.

He likes the passion and love Steve always puts into it, like he puts into everything, and he likes following a recipe, and he likes the smells that hang around the apartment after. He likes forgetting about the world outside for just a little while.

“You used to hate it,” Steve says, when Bucky tells him, “back before the war. Always said it took too long for something that’d be gone in a hot minute anyway.”

They're in the kitchen now, trying to make a meat sauce from the - honestly, pretty poor - directions Clint gave them.

“You liked breakfast, though,” Steve continues, and leans against the fridge to watch Bucky dice a yellow pepper.

“Most important meal of the day, Stevie,” Bucky says, and glances over at him. Steve's arms are crossed and he's got an easy smile on his face, and the late afternoon sun coming in through the window turns his hair into pure gold.

Bucky thinks if he never remembers anything else, he wants to remember how Steve looks right now this second.

A song about hungry hearts plays quietly from the record player in the living room. The player was a gift from Rhodes when Steve moved in, and the Springsteen record came from a garage sale Bucky insisted they browse.

He turns his attention back to the pepper and the knife in his hand.

It's sharp, sharper than it probably needs to be, but it makes Bucky feel  _ safe,  _ somehow. He knows his way around a sharp knife, and it's nice to use it in a way that isn't potentially lethal. It feels good to use the kind of skill he has for something so domestic, so everyday.

Like a big  _ fuck you _ to HYDRA and the Winter Soldier.

The pasta turns out better than either of them expected, but it's still not the same as it was when Natasha and Clint had them all over for dinner three weeks ago. Maybe it's the fact that they're eating on the couch in front of the TV instead of a dining table in the Bartons’ perpetually unfinished kitchen.

There's also the fact that it's just the two of them, eating in comfortable silence.

“Needs more garlic,” Steve says after his plate is already clear.

“They say hindsight is twenty-twenty,” Bucky agrees, but he still considers licking the plate clean.

Steve takes their plates and loads them into the dishwasher.

“I'll tell you one thing,” Steve says, when he returns with two bowls containing three scoops of ice cream each, “I'd take that dishwasher over a flyin’ car any day of the week.”

Bucky laughs, and Steve grins at him.

They watch the entire first season of  _ Friends,  _ and Bucky laughs some more.

Steve laughs, too, and Bucky thinks he might like that even better than the show.

 

* * *

 

Bucky has a nightmare that night, the first he's had since the day they went to see Peggy, when he dreamed about a train and falling, always falling.

His nightmares are always memories. Tonight he remembers a face, a knife in his hand, and blood. Lots of blood.

He remembers slicing the throat of a nameless SHIELD agent, and her face the second she recognizes him as the Winter Soldier, or maybe as James Barnes - he never asked.

Bucky spends twenty minutes in the bathroom trying to clean away the blood that isn't there, but he can still feel on his hands, until the skin is raw and sensitive.

He sits up in bed with a lamp on and stares at the wall for another forty, and then there's a knock at his door.

A pause. Then, quietly, “Bucky?”

Steve opens the door just a crack. “Can I come in?”

“Okay,” Bucky says, and Steve does. He closes the door gently, and stands against it.

“You were in there a long time,” Steve says. “You wanna talk?”

Bucky nods.

“Okay. What happened, pal?”

“Nightmare,” he says. “One of my -  _ the Asset’s  _ kills.”

He has trouble separating them, sometimes, especially when he remembers things like that. They're the same person, he knows that, he can't change that, but he still forgets that he's not that person - that  _ machine  _ \- anymore.

“SHIELD agent,” he continues. “She - she didn't even get a chance to defend herself, Steve - there was so much blood. It was  _ everywhere _ .”

He looks at his hands, rubbed red, when he tells Steve, “I can still feel it on me.”

“I got a lot of blood on my hands, too, Buck,” Steve says after a minute. He sinks to the floor against the door. “Every damn day I think about the shit I've done for one cause or another, about all the lives I've taken.”

Bucky looks at him then, and he's staring at the ceiling.

“It never really gets easier, just easier to live with.”

They talk for a while about things that don't matter, and at some point Steve moves and sits against Bucky's bed. He looks beautiful in the lamplight, but Bucky thinks he looks beautiful in any light.

Bucky yawns once, around four in the morning, and Steve takes that as his cue to leave.

“Call if you need me,” Steve says, with just his head inside the door. “G’night, Buck.”

Bucky turns off the lamp, and he's sure that Steve is still beautiful in the darkness that follows.

 

* * *

 

"What're we watchin’ today, Stevie?” Bucky asks, and throws himself onto the couch. Steve bounces a little with the force of the impact, which throws his guard down long enough for Bucky “land” with his head in Steve's lap.

“Disney movies,” Steve says, very matter of fact. “There's been, like, fifty of 'em since the forties.”

They watch  _ Snow White _ first. It's somehow not as good as Steve remembers.

He has to call Sam to ask if Pixar counts as Disney before they watch  _ The Incredibles _ , and then invites him for dinner too.

“Alright, but only if I don't have to look at Barnes,” is his way of accepting the invitation.

“I have superhuman hearing,” Bucky says once Steve hangs up. “Does he know that? He knows that, right?”

“Yeah,” Steve smiles, letting Bucky settle in beside him with a bowl of popcorn, “he knows.”

It's almost like old times, Steve thinks, when Bucky rests his head on Steve's shoulder and the popcorn on their barely-touching thighs, except that it's not, and for a lot of reasons.

The first reason he thinks of is that they never would've been able to afford this much popcorn back then.

He laughs at himself.

It's not like the old days because one of them can't  _ remember  _ the old days, because they could barely afford to see the pictures back then, because now Bucky has a metal arm and a lot for really unfortunate reflexes, because there's more than a couple cans of spam in the kitchen.

It's not like the old days because it isn't the old days.

But it  _ feels  _ like it could be, like if Steve closes his eyes and focuses on the sound of Bucky laughing too loudly for Steve to hear the joke, the taste of salty popcorn, the warm closeness of his best friend, he could be right back in that 1930’s picture house in his tiny, fragile, kid-from-Brooklyn body with Bucky by his side in case some big guy decided to try something.

Maybe it's for the best that it isn't the old days.

They have leftover pasta for dinner, and Sam watches them watch  _ The Lion King  _ for the first time.

“The fuck, Disney?” is the only thing Bucky says about it.

Captain America stands on a walkway two thousand feet in the air, in an annoying red-white-and-blue suit that'll do him more harm than good. He looks sad.

 

* * *

 

There is no way for this to end well for Captain America. If Captain America survives, the Winter Soldier does not.

_ “Bucky.” _

The Winter Soldier makes the first move.

Captain America blocks and dodges and avoids using more force than necessary to stop the Winter Soldier from killing him.

_ “Don't make me do this.” _

There is a gun in the Winter Soldier’s hand and blood on his face and a trigger beneath his finger. He has a clear shot; Captain America is scrambling up to the walkway, to the console in the centre of this flying deathtrap.

He shoots Captain America in the stomach.  _ Where is your precious shield now, _ he would think, if he were allowed.

_ “You know me.” _

The Winter Soldier's knuckles are bloody, his hand likely broken. Captain America has given up. His shield has fallen into the Potomac, and their floating fortress is to join it soon.

_ “You're my mission.” _

A blow to Steve Rogers’ cheek, his nose, his jaw.

_ “Then finish it.” _

Another, another, another.

_ “Because I'm with you til the end of the line.” _

Another, another - stop. The words bounce around the Winter Soldier's head. He is at war with himself. His programming tells him to  _ end it end it kill him,  _ but something stops him. This hand, this clenched fist poised for impact and made to destroy, belongs to someone else.

Bucky Barnes looks at Steve Rogers for the first time since 1945, and wakes up screaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't remember when i said this would be updated last time but I'm pretty sure it wasn't seven months
> 
> sorry about that

**Author's Note:**

> sorry if updates are few and far between but I'm literally posting this as i write it
> 
>  
> 
> im nebulastucky on tumblr come talk to me about bucky barnes' inherent goodness


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